Fruity Smoothie: Attempts at Healthy Living

Diary

Thursday August 4th, 2016.

I sat in my desk in anxious wait for the end of the work day. After coming across before-and-after pictures of K-Pop singer Park Boram, I was finally determined like never before to lose weight and strive for the life of health and fitness celebrities have bombarded me with. Dinnertime comes, and sure enough I fall victim to Wendy’s temptations and order a cheese and grease mini fest of fries smothered in cheese, spicy chicken nuggets, and a Jr. Cheeseburger.

Friday August 5th, 2016.

First day of attempting my “diet” of a smoothie for breakfast and lunch. I’m proud of myself, you see, because, overcoming my typical disdain for grocery shopping, I purchased nearly all of the ingredients for four different smoothie recipes on the phone app I recently installed, very simply called “Smoothie Recipes,” which parades a green icon with a mason jar.

“What ingredient(s) is/are missing?” Might you ask, enveloped in your rising fascination for my daily routine. I will tell you. It was only flax oil, which Dave and I were unable to find. Nevertheless, we got ahold of the well-renowned chia seeds, whose purpose eluded me until yesterday’s purchase, when Dave informed me of their usage as a dietary supplement. “Ahh, they’re not consumed in the hope that you might grow a well-trimmed topiary in the shape of a cartoon icon in your very own stomach,” I wish I had said. The rest of the list was comprised of rather typical smoothie ingredients, such as strawberries, bananas, blueberries, tropical fruits, citruses, spinach, beets, the Cali-worshipped kale, as well as both coconut milk and coconut water.

Smoothie supplies with bonus aloe vera (recipe inclusion pending)

Back to the “diet,” smoothies are rather delicious* and a source of nutrition I trust highly to extend—or at the very least not shorten—my lifetime, much unlike protein meals that require I drink them nearly-immediately after mixing with water. I soon found out that might be due to the terrifying odor of insecticide emanating from the drink when you leave it in the sink for about half a day, sitting in its container, nervous the stench might expose its devious plan to slowly assassinate unknowing fitness enthusiasts.

Smoothies on the other hand, I trust them. A few of the more new-age-fad-like ingredients might seem more suspicious, but for the most part, they’ve ascertained their place in our evolution and food chain. I even feel highly revitalized already. We live in the mountains, but I’d often turn and say to Dave, “Camping!? We’d die! There’s bears and wolves and coyotes and raccoons and fungi, Dave! It’s utter darkness against the elements and we’re original city [suburb] dwellers!” Even when Dave was perhaps sitting quietly staring at his phone screen.

There’s no way I would’ve considered camping previously without the presence of a well-trained, Rambo-like camp (…) man (?). Smoothies change things. I feel outdoorsy and near-instantaneously savvy in the workings of nature. Purchased fruits, veggies and seeds? Why not camping equipment? Scratch that, climbing equipment. If my exceedingly-fit cousin with an extensive side career as a rock climber in Colorado can do it, why can’t I? I will tell you, I can. I drink smoothies now. I will let nature guide me into becoming the nature guide that guides others away from their own demise. Health as my path, deliciousness as my sword.

All kidding aside, I have decent hopes for this new lifestyle—the one about drinking smoothies, not rock-climbing; we’ve established I’d die in that one.

*They can also be chewy, like today’s smoothie, made with beets that I liquified rather poorly in our Ninja brand blender. This chewiness makes it feel as if I was chewing on an actual breakfast, making me half-forget it is in fact a drink, and nulling my usual need for consumption of bread items. More typically, a toasted bagel** with everything.

** Unfortunately, toasting a bagel with everything burns the garlic bits, making it slightly more bitter, but which I found to be a necessary evil against New Yorkers’ wishes to not toast their bagels, (but then again, their bagels might be far different from the ones I get at work here in the Berkshires).

Dave and I had a Mango Mint Green Smoothie from the Smoothie Recipes app. I replaced a third of the mango portion with papaya and added the two [edit: Tbsp] of chia seeds. I poured mine into a mason jar based on pop culture traditions and Dave had his in a regular glass, due to his mild resistance to “Hipster” culture #Cristi. Dave said it was so delicious he’d be willing to pay a significant amount of money for this. I said, “How about $12?” to which he replied, “maybe $8 [for the glass].” Worth it.

[Edit | Sunday, August 21st, 2016] : I would definitely recommend purchasing the ingredients listed for 4-5 recipes if you’re planning on making one a day, since some fruits can spoil rather quickly. (Made the mistake of purchasing 3 peaches and 3 pears without prior plans for them… Only one of the peaches made it in less than a week, hoping the pears will make it to tomorrow. Tragic). So yes, learning to be a responsible consumer of fresh produce is part of the process. Here are some of our favorite recipes so far: